germany, the netherlands and britain have privatized their post offices, candid and britain have privatized their air traffic control systems. most european countries use private airport screening as i think august and mike it is certainly for me with. passenger rail's and privatized in britain but if you look at a system like air traffic control, our system is falling behind. it's got massive cost overruns. it can't handle technology. we are running our air traffic control which is a high-tech business, we are running it like a bureaucracy. it makes no sense but the solution is privatization like britain and canada have done. the canadian system set up as a nonprofit corporation, non-subsidized works extremely well. it's one of the safest systems in the world. it is a leader in i.t. that's where the united states needs to go with air traffic control. similarly with postal service as i'm sure you're all familiar with, the royal mail, 500 euros

government company was privatized in britain. the british government did that for the same reason we've got problems with our u.s. yes. declining mail volume and deed for greater efficiency in the market economy. so britain has done. iselin note -- i see no reason why this country can't privatized its postal system. thank you very much. >> thank you. mr. arnold. >> minus brandon arnold and the vice president of government affairs for the national taxpayers union. thank you to the committee and the chairmen and ranking ever for having me today. lef..

by myself i would include a heck of a lot more, but you know, when you are cooperating there is a lot to talk about bipartisan cooperation. we are very pleased to work to find stuff that we both agreed upon. i don't have time to go through all 65 recommendations in this brief period but the report is included in some entire dna binder and i hope that without objection the entire binder be placed on the record.

i hope he will share it with your staff and colleagues and use it as best you can. let me touch on a couple quick highlights if i can include it in the 500 billion-dollar figure is up to 152 billion in savings from eliminating wasteful subsidies to agribusiness and other corporations like cutting $2 billion by eliminating the market access program which pays for large corporations to market their products i should say overseas. reducing the funding by a billion dollars for the economic development administration. also there is $197.2 billion in savings from ending low priority or unnecessary military programs included in that 197 billion-dollar figure reducing by $1.9 billion expenditures on military bands. there's as much as $42.3 billion from improvements to program execution and government operations.

that includes 145 -- 140 million in savings from e eliminating duplicative cat fish inspection program, which has been cited numerous times by many groups on the left and many outlets of media being absolutely wasteful duplicative program that is duplicated at the fda as well as in noaa. there is 131 print $6 million in entitlement programs and also to root out waste and fraud but we found $1.8 million by stopping improper medicare programs to them on covered chiropractic services and 7.6 billion from the medicare fees that would go to the private sector. of the 65 recommendations i believe to say that one has been enacted in all already in the budget deal that congress passed next month. there was a 50 million-dollar savings that came from the ultra deepwater natural gas and petroleum research program, a

little bit of a mouthful. that was included in the budget deal. again, that would save $50 million. that is one down and 64 to go. there is a lot of work to be done. the second half of my testimony, i know jaimie is going to get into the report in a moment. the second half of my testimony i try to touch on a few legislative process based change as congress could act to reduce and eliminate waste and fraud. i will touch on those very quickly, and obviously they are in my written testimony but strengthening the whistle-blower protections we took a step forward in 2012 with s. 743 which i know was supported by the chairman and ranking member to decrease the protection for federal employees and we took a step back on the decision in 2013 that will exempt the federal employees from whistle-blower protections others work to be done there ending the spending spree that occurred at the end of the fiscal year and the congressman he alluded to those in the early

remarks establishing the committee sometimes called the amihai appropriation committee to acquire the periodic review of the programs that are no longer needed or in the pentagon as it has been mentioned several times already limiting the spending just reducing spending, keeping the spending caps in place and requiring agencies and departments to prioritize their programs when you start to turn away the budgets to be effective in reducing waste. touching on the entitlement programs, critically important. they strongly support the act that senators carper and colburn spoke of earlier and certainly the branch of the legislative branch can't do it alone and seem to be part of the solution as well. i see that i'm just about out of time so i will end my remarks there. >> ms. woo if you would continue. >> chairman, ranking member, thank you for inviting me to testify on behalf the u.s.

public interest research group. my name is jaimie woo and i'm the budget associate. u.s. perc is a consumer advocacy group and we are in nonprofit non-partisan organization that advocates improvements in fiscal policy to stop special-interest giveaways coming increase budget transparency and accountability, and eliminate waste, ensure that subsidies are for the public and make the tax fair. as congress works to pass the budget the next year, the national taxpayers unit as mentioned have come together to offer a set of deficit reduction and recommendations working with half a trillion dollars. this has an appeal from the past political spectrum. the december 20 report to the common ground reaching the political divide of the deficit reduction recommendation for congress of which i amoco offer details 65 specific cuts over ten years. we do not often agree on policy approaches helping the nation's problems however we are united

in the believe we spend too much money on an effective programs that do not serve the best interest of the people. in this report we identified the low hanging fruit of waste and inefficiency in the federal budget that both republican and democratic lawmakers should recognize as unproductive use of taxpayers' dollars. the u.s. spending cut is guided by four basic principles. number one, oppose the subsidies that provide incentives to companies that do harm to public-interest work that do more harm than good. an example of the funding for the biomass research and development. large-scale agricultural production of corn or other crops used for biomass often include large amounts of fertilizer, water and land. and often utility problems and forestry and to compete with food production raising food prices globally. member to oppose the subsidies to the mature profitable industries that don't meet. these countries engage

regardless of tax payer support. for example the congress should eliminate the insurance program that directly subsidizes insurance premiums to the large agribusinesses and they could purchase on their own. member for mechem support reforms and make the government more efficient. according to the office of management and budget the federal government owns tens of thousands of underutilized building infrastructures as the senator mentioned. they shouldn't have to maintain the buildings that are not used. reducing inventory would save $15 billion over ten years. the post programs were in the consensus to do so, so this means when there is a strong independent agreement across the political spectrum that a program as wasteful or an agency and department receiving the funding has argued against it. for example the pentagon and white house have said the army no longer needs additional to the the reports and recommendations are specific, targeted and name the individual

programs for reduction or elimination. these recommendations are passed up the backed out such as the congressional budget office and the government accountability office. long time for general references and rhetorical call for the nameless faceless programs that contain the waste, fraud and abuse. this is a reason that u.s. pirg did not support across-the-board cuts and such failed to differentiate between the true public purities and more than a genuine waste for inefficiencies in the system. our organization argued in favor of the programs to get access to higher education and measures to ensure the safety of the nation's food supply across-the-board cuts equate those programs with the wasteful spending we highlight in the report. while not in the report also urged committee members to review the special-interest carr felt in the tax expenditures and loopholes and they are the same bottom-line effect on the nation's deficit as the direct line item spending.

regardless whether it takes place in the tax code or appropriation process ordinary business is lined up picking up the tax on the revenue in the form of the cuts to the program come - taxes or more in debt. we recognize that many of the items on the list challenged longstanding subsidy to narrow the powerful interest. despite the fact the expenditures are of little or no continuing public service and the public would likely support their elimination and no doubt the efforts to preserve these handouts. we strongly urge you to resist the efforts to take the first important step to address in the federal budgeting problem and to ensure that any public expenditure is in the public interest. thank you. and i would be happy to answer any questions. >> i will now recognize for a short round of questioning. mr. edwards, as you know, i'm a fan of your organization, but let me get into a question on the jurisdiction of this

committee. privatization in the post office, do you imagine that anybody would take the post office even for free today? >> as i mentioned, the had an ideal for the post office. they sold 52% -- >> the post office is currently losing 16.2 or so billion dollars without paying a cent in tax and if you look at the deferrals, those that account for the way the public would, that $60 billion of post revenue isn't a when it's time limited but very briefly but given that we would have a dramatic reorganization before the post office would be privatized you could do it either way under the statute they've made major changes the way an entrepreneur would think about it is you can

take the government and make them a lot more efficient in germany, britain and austria. they've become a lot more efficient after the privatization and they went from the deficits of the surplus. but the government can't make money -- >> on a bipartisan process we have been trying to get the post office fixed and i just want to make sure that i use this opportunity to make one thing i think more clear but i want to use you if you agree we would have to throw $100 billion or more into the deficits that exist against an existing current and retired workforce if we were to transfer to the public sector as it is today and if it has the ability to make a profit let's just say it has the ability to make a 5 billion-dollar profit you give it 50 billion no one is going to absorb the current obligations

to the legacy employees based on that, are they? >> that may be true. the british government took over the unfunded liabilities of the tension before. >> okay. so even looking at -- the british system, we would have to take that tens of millions or hundreds of billions of dollars of legacy liability. so the american people have a very expensive decision even if we were to give away the post office. is canada that is probably true but what you are looking for is economic growth and efficiency that benefits the overall economy. to my mind, that is kind of a small and narrow issue. if you can have a more efficient system fred decades in the future -- system and decades in the future. >> we are trying to reform the post office and look at the break even post office whether there's opportunities to be a little bit more private than they currently are.

i'm not trying to be the adversary. you are my heroes, but i served for ten years in the military off and on active duty and then in their reserves. when we look at the savings of the dod, wouldn't we be better off transferring 65 to $69 billion of the monochord military activity out of the department of defense as the first step rather than looking at the millions of dollars spent in total on the marine band? they were modeled on our recipients who work in korea, the marine bans also infantry fight. >> we list with regard to the marine they are not booting of these individuals out of the military that at the same time we are spending tremendous amounts on the service portion of the military that i think is

probably not directly related to the national security that should be the primary function of the defense department, and i think that was the kind of framework that we were operating within the department holistically what is necessary for the national security and what can we turn away given the effect that we are running 600 or $700 billion of annual deficits. >> also we'd pay for the cost when it is awarded it is a part of what the military is. i want to make cuts of the military, but i want to make the cuts that leaves us with a military that is effective and i often see those and i pushed back pretty hard as you could imagine because i believe that i can trim, but the department of defense pentagon building is completely filled in as an overflow and max -- annex. it was the size of world war ii when we didn't have computers and yet not a single office in

the pentagon, and so i would hope that the committees of jurisdiction would ask the question why are there more civilians working for the department and more uniform personnel why is there not an empty room at the pentagon when in fact the military has been reduced in size? so that is a little bit of my pushback. i do appreciate a lot of the other areas that you proposed, and i recognize that i have already run over my time on the two subjects. >> mr. schatz, this is your report; is that right? >> yes. >> i was looking here and it's about, you know, on page 46 it talks about eliminating the legal service corporation and so many people do not have access

to the legal services. can you talk about that briefly? >> the attorneys to provide pro bono services and are essentially required to on the form to renew the license and says are you providing these services? we think a lot of the services through the legal service corporation could be provided in the private sector and nonprofits and not necessarily by the federal government. in 1974 there was no legal service corporation and i don't know if there is any evidence that the representation was better or worse prior to that time. >> i just think that our society is getting to the point that folks as a lawyer that has practiced many years i have seen a lot of people come into court, and they were not decided at a disadvantage and although we have a legal system in the

constitution legal rights, if people don't have council, i understand what you're saying. leave it to the pro bono you really have to do quite a bit, but even then i don't think it captures. and this is a very interesting document i want to go through. how did you come up with these items? >> it's been produced since 1993. the sources in those days the recommendations are still not implemented. we look at the congressional budget office's every year in the gao reports budgets put out by members of congress such as the republican study committee

and others, so these are -- this always ties back to something to do >> ms. woo, the establishment is one of the most recent tools that resulted from chairman carper and coburn on and proper payments. the list such as a general services administration excludes to check the eligibility to receive government funds. what else would the organization proposed to help decrease the level of and proper payment and can you imagine the american public on the improper payments and then the situation where we are trying to come up with $6.4 billion to give the neighbors and friends an opportunity to get employment

and we are losing money in the improper payments that's something that's very alarming and i just wonder what would you propose? >> thank you. in the in - led reforms we listed including the improper payments for the non-covered services that were mentioned, that is an area that i can actually follow up with you on in terms of getting back to the health care advocates and i will provide you better terms. >> do you have an interest in that improper payment issue? what's going to the dod. when you look at the situation where we can't even provided an audit, come on. is it to a big to control with

regard to the dod? basically the transferring of certain funds they have all kinds of funding for things like medical research and things of that nature. but did you all have any of your suggestions on that? >> it helps to know the department of spending. >> well, we agree the citizens expos to 640-dollar seat we don't see much of any more but things like the procurement will help reduce wasteful spending for what the government in putting the dod and that's an important step. >> i would say general things that the pentagon. i like spending caps combined with the executive branch

flexibility. i like the current spending caps that disappointed with the recent budget deal. i think, you know, the pentagon if we gave them more flexibility to make the decisions they don't want and need and we put tight caps on them, and they would themselves find more efficiency. i think one of the problems in the federal government is because it is so huge many members spend their times on activities that frankly should begin the realm of the government to be a i think if we trim some of the functions in the federal government more members of congress but focus more on some of those core functions like the pentagon waste. >> mr. chairman? i couldn't quite hear mr. schatz. it that i understand mr. schatz to say that they would face the money? >> they would help very why -- i

never know if something is going to be good or bad. >> thank you. mr. cummings i guess i will recognize myself next, having assumed from mr. issa. one of the things that's frustrating to me -- and these are great groups. you have citizens against their government waste, cato, the national taxpayers union, ms. woo, all of you working in the same way. but sometimes the voices are a little bit like congress. they are not unified. is there an attempt to come together with any of these groups? dewaal come out with a common policy? we have many others looking at saving taxpayer dollars. is there some association coming in to do you meet and do you

decide on some priorities? >> yes, sometimes there are too many e-mails and particularly we work very closely and joke around the office as well and it's really true. i think over the years there has been a lot more coordination. for example, the joint strike fighter we first identified back in a 2006. over time, they joined with us -- >> the policy -- >> it is more coalition. >> i think that would be helpful. >> we need it to be successful because there are so many people that want to spend. we have to work together. >> i said earlier, you just have to be persistent. a good example, and i should have submitted this earlier. i did put this in the record, but this is the oversight on the conference spending report that

body loaded -- i eluded. it wasn't just gsa. i have to give most credit to the one in the hot tub, eni inigo vital. i remember we did a hearing on the subject. nobody paid any attention until that guy. we did it dod and this is about half a billion dollars a year of reduced spending conferences. my point also is that i don't feel either of these groups joined. it's not that you want to become cozy with congress, but when we are on a roll it does help the public building -- the history of public building and people that have attempted, i remember

we were in the minority. it's good to be in the minority but not for too long. i'm sorry, mr. cummings -- but when you, are there you can do productive things coming and we produced a report at the federal government must stop sitting on its assets. and the outline all of the public buildings and amtrak and just incredible assets that the government has. but the problem is you don't get unified support from out there with some of these groups to go after these things. so, while you heard a lot of how we need to coordinate with the senate and take up the priorities, i think you would be good for your groups to coalesce and get behind some of these items. it blood again enhance our efforts and when we do things like talking about consolidating programs, the transportation

bill consolidated between 20 to 30 programs. the bureaucrats are running around trying to justify their existence. we have eliminated and consolidated, but nobody is focusing on the bureaucrats who are trying to justify their existence. they have nothing to do because you eliminate the program, but they come up with the rules commandeer god they have come up with rules to justify the system. anyone want to comment on this new administered regulation as a new phenomena, mr. schatz, mr. arnold, ms. woo? >> we would be happy to come out on a regular basis and need your committee that is interested in consolidating -- >> we have already done that -- it's a new phenomena. it is ruled by the edic

regulation and you do not have a focus -- we don't have a focus on what's going on. there is some oversight. the administration has been kind of clever on the executive order to pack the district court of appeals. that's been the only recourse to the and you can pass the bill from the house and there's nothing in the senate in the executive order prevails. were you paying any attention to that? >> i will give you a general comment, but the groups represented here are pretty small compared to the huge fire power of the gao and cbo. >> they do freeport's and they have to be politically correct. >> we have to pick and choose. for example i read extensively about the tsa reform.

i know that's something you've been very supportive of and a leader on, but it's difficult for the groups because most of the experts on federal programs are in the executive branch and the staffers in congress and in the gao. groups need to pick and choose our battles. we can't come and because the funding is limited we would love to work more with you. >> my power may be some unified effort x. he did my time. let me yield to the gentle lady from new york, ms. mallone. >> for your presentation and hard work and tremendously important area. the prior panel had a consensus that one of the most mismanaged agencies was the pentagon, and they were united in their belief that the treasury should be paying their books or writing their checks as opposed to the pentagon.

they pointed up the pentagon was the only agency in the entire government that themselves pay their checks. .. we've written in conjunction about the common ground. we've also work with senator coburn's office to help right to this report. on the that matter i would say

that u.s. pirg director expert on defense policy on defense spending and so forth. so i will give a yes or no answer on that but we do take the authority and the consensus of there is experts, the pentagon and the white house and so forth. >> you are very strong on the f-35 joint strike fighter debacle as you call it in your report. this is one of the key programs that might hurt and joint recommendation is cutting it, the joint strike fighter. which is the largest weapons system in history. largest contract in history for the pentagon. so far the dod has spent 12 years developing it. by all consensus their own consensus is deeply flawed and has escalated with cost overruns to over $400 billion. not only are the overruns now at 400 billion, they're estimating

it costs $1 trillion to maintain these planes. the price tag is not the only frightening thing about this acquisition. dod entered into the contract to purchase these planes while the critical testing is ongoing, a practice called concurrency. swept into 2012 dod has pictured 121 aircraft at a cost of 28 million, but as of 2012 only 22% of the testing that they want to do has been completed. so i would say that this is an area we can work on. shouldn't be any of contracts before you test them. i'm going to put in a bill to that effect. according to the pentagon's own office of operational test and evaluation, in 2013 the plane has quote no night capacity. so my question, ms. woo, would you think that if i'd played should be able to fly in the night?

>> i do believe that. >> okay. do you agree with dod's own statement from the chief acquisition called it, and i quote, this is a quote from the chief of acquisition, i find it startling, he called it, quote, acquisition malpractice. would you agree with ahead of the chief acquisition undersecretary frank kendall, would you agree that it's acquisition malpractice? this is dod talking about their own procurement system. >> yes. >> does the acquisition -- what i don't understand and we can get into a longer conversation on this is, you know, how does an acquisition of a fighter plane become such a debacle, that the own acquisition officers are called it a disaster? but my main question is, what steps does dod need to take in

order to eliminate the wasteful and unnecessary f-35 program? and it's noted in other reports, it may have been yours or someone else's, that it doesn't even address the way that we are moving militarily. it can't land on an aircraft. the navy has these big boats that planes land on. the navy plane cannot land on their own aircraft. so how do you move it around? we seem to be having these smaller strike forces as opposed to a huge plane that can fly at night and can't land. so what are the steps that dod would need to take to eliminate what, by their own acquisition leadership, mr. kendall, is calling an acquisition disaster? what are the steps? anyone. how do you get rid of the wasteful item in the budget? how would you do that? >> one of the recommendations we

have is to reduce the cost growth in the major defense acquisition portfolio by 20% over five years. gao has done work on this. it's simply changing the way that procurement is achieved at dod and it's been an ongoing problem for many, many years. the big operation, were happy to work this committee and others to try to reform it spent any other? how do you get rid of the wasteful acquisition? how do you get rid of the? you've identified. now how do you get rid of its? >> i don't know if it's fair to put this hold on dod to is probably going to require congressional action as well. you're talking about these massive weapons system, a lot of program interest that were involved. it's extraordinary difficult but i think congress needs to run point. we a significant number of weapons systems and other things being done by dod that they safety do not need and they do not want, yet they're obligated by law to continue to contract, to produce, to making their congress needs to step in at

some point and there's a lot of options in our paper, the publications of coburn and others have put out that congress can introduce legislation and pass it and stop these things from taking place. >> i think the gentlelady. >> mr. lankford. >> i want to ask about incentivizing agencies, and agency individual. the incentive for agency is to add more staff and try to chase down $4 to spend as much as you can at the end of the year. how do we split the incentive? you mentioned spending caps, sequestration caps another gaps hit at every single program. there are some programs that run more efficiently than others. but a catholic sequestration hits all of them with equal amount of pure. if i handed the authority said i needed to get 7% or 27% from your budget, there's very little oversight of which programs they're going to get and to keep

the ones they like the best and they look at the ones that probably i like the best. so talk through different options that you've seen for incentivizing agencies in reduction. >> i think ultimately for reasons i go into in my tests when i was 15 reason why the public sector will never wear be anywhere as efficient as the private sector. the profit motive is hugely powerful, and the government doesn't have that. government -- has been lots of talk of paper performance in the federal government for decades. it never happens and they don't think it can. the government has more rules because of picket structural reasons to prevent public corruption and because they have no clear motive, like lower costs and maximizing revenue. i think the focus should be on fully eliminating programs and also capping spending, getting executive branch agencies more

flexibility. i think executive branch agencies should and can do more to evaluate their own programs, perhaps agencies should be required to do detailed analyses and rank order their most efficient or highest priority programs to the lowest priority program. making information public so that congress can see it and congress can use it for decision-making. more information is always better. one thing that i find striking come ago to the website, it's all good news, all essentially propaganda but all the great favorite things to do but i don't think that's fair to taxpayers. i think federal agencies should be required to provide more alice information about the programs, their failings and with a low priority activities they do are. the ultimate decision is up to congress but i think agencies can do more to provide information to congress about where they fail. >> i would agree. taxpayers have a right to know.

we've talked about this committee has passed. we have bipartisan input into that bill. it passed on a hopeful full house will pass it on and we'll send to the senate. just the basics, how much we spend, and the metrics if there are any metrics for program would be a tremendous asset to congress to make those decisions because right now there's no description of all those programs or listing of the programs. so what dr. coburn mentioned earlier about the hundreds of duplicative programs, it's a difficult to go through the tedious work of identifying all those programs because they all had to different descriptions and different locations. mr. schatz, i appreciate, you mentioned earlier about the rule change in the house. proud to say it was my rule change that with you on that one as well to identify some of the duplicative programs. we have a long way to go. there's not enough teeth and i appreciate you bringing it back out because that is something that i hope and years ahead we can add more teeth to a. it's more than just identifying and listening yes, it's

duplicative but a prohibition to that as well. are there other things you have seen that would be an asset in the days ahead? >> i think it reminds me of the improper payment act, because we just identify the improper payments and the next he really put teeth into it. so i hope that the rule that has been adopted would improve over the years because if you are prohibited from acting a duplicative and overlapping program, then that helps solve the problem to start. i know rules change at the beginning of each congress. i hope there's a change in leadership, that will continue because it's really critical. it's amazing it took this long cover like that because one would think any organization would want it. we appreciate leadership on the. were happy to come up with other rules but i was happy to see that one was there. we didn't even know it was there. so that something else that perhaps needs to be emphasized to the committees.

that this is a rule and they should be using it. citizens against government waste didn't know much aboutit, the rest of the public probably doesn't either. >> encourage more information. it's new and it's a step process able to push the. one quick question for mr. arnold and ms. wu. one of the items identified was required dod and va to jointly buy prescription drug. this is something i've tried to as well. i've seen figures you have, although over $4 billion in savings. as high as 7 billion in savings on the. did you want to mention or at any of the detail to it? gao report came out in on 2000 suggesting that dod and va jointly purchase prescription drug. did it for several years. had millions of savings until 2005 and then in 2006 dod changed its formulary and they never cooperated again since then. they looked at it again but i didn't get any additional detail. that's one of the bipartisan

areas to like and say why wouldn't we tried to combine the drug purchasing between dod and va. any other comments either of you have on the? >> i think you articulated it pretty well. i don't know if i have anything additional to add. something we strongly support. >> i think just repeat what you were saying, that cooperation had really declined over the past few years and we are really advocating for that to occur again. >> thank you. with that i yield back. >> insulated from illinois, ms. duckworth is recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you to all the witnesses for being there today to share your thoughts. over the past couple of weeks we've been debating whether not we can afford to spend unemployment insurance for a lifeline for millions of americans and in my home district of illinois, thousands of families were talked about last year, cuts to the food stamp program. yet at the same time in this committee we saw time and again

the ways that happens in government. it's really infuriating to me to think that i have kids in my district who are going hungry and getters $909 for it of unused stryker parts sitting in a warehouse at the military paid for that couldn't use and continued to purchase but i'd like to sort of talk more about the dod and its process. this past year, my first year in congress, two things that happened that really sort of crystallized in my mind the waste that happens in dod, especially under the defense of logistics agency. one was a hearing in this very committee on the supremes would contract and that is the incorporation of supreme food services that provide under a sole contract authored in afghanistan for the last decade. and, in fact, have now been found to have overcharged the dod by $757 million for the food

contract. they continue to get extension for the contract. in a noncompetitive award process. this is something that the dod ig itself discovered and brought to light. that i talked about this audit, result of the dod ig investigation. mr. arnold, could you give me any suggestions that you might have as to how dod can develop some sort of controls over -- i know we talk about the audit process and i agree, we need to put some teeth into the process of forcing dod to do the audits but what about -- if the dod's own internal ig is identifying these are problems, what is there that we can to? >> let me confess first while i was a co-author of the study and it didn't work quite as much on defense aspects of it. in terms of getting into the technical details, i would have

to defer to my colleague who did a lot of work or perhaps some work with pirg. i don't know if i have undertaken answered. be happy to get back to you after getting. >> no problem. ms. woo? >> in terms of the consolidation we found that can occur in the defense department and all of them include in our report consolidating foreign language contracts, uniform design for the armed services or support services or consulting management of retail basis, these are all small things that can add up to a lot of money. in terms of the process of how that would go about, as i mentioned before, we are not defense experts and we don't have anything to say about the process by which it would happen but these are the things they need to be addressed a need to be consulted, need to be cut. especially because i think a senator coburn has said, with so many programs, over 600, for other departments and the same

for the defense department when our multiple programs for a signing uniform, i think that's it. >> the uniform thing is right after -- i'm the individual who got passed this year at the camouflage pattern bill. that would say the army alone ate too many dollars by going back to a single camouflage pattern which is what we had most of my entire time in a military up until 2004 when the marines developed their own. let's switch gears and talk about medicare. i had anything in my district where we talked, where we taught our seniors to look into medicare fraud and waste, taught him to read their own medicare statements. one of the things that was quite shocking to me is that the regional medicare represented who came to teach the course actually made the statement that they know that 10% of the payments are to fraudulent and wasteful claims. that they know and accept they have that 10% waste. and that they're working to fix

it but that comes up to about $1 billion a week. it is stunning to me that is acceptable. i don't think we would accept it in business and we shouldn't accept in government. can you talk about medicare, just the waste portion of it? not the fraud and abuse. but the waste. >> yeah, absolutely. i think that's appalling to me as well, but that they readily knowingly accept that 10%, i think is that 10% goes to fraudulent claims. improper payments. there are a lot of different -- in a report are several different in time reforms within the health care system that we have advocated for. one of them is better line medicare payments to hospitals. med care, the medicare advisory commission on medpac has stated that the cost of teaching hospitals is much less than the amount of government funding that we are providing them. better align that with, over

$10 billion in the next 10 years. there's plenty of other things about medicare payments so that a single event goes to a number of different individual episodes in a three-month period. it would also advocate for a more effective time for effective and efficient actual services. and so these are the types of things we think are really important within the health care system that we can't and should change. >> thank you gently. we will recognize the gentleman from michigan. >> i thank the chairman. i just arrived back from meeting with the workforce committee and delighted to hear senator coburn talk about the skills i extensively as being one of our greatest accomplishments, even though it is limited. and i think it was.

downsizing numbers of redundant programs, 35 ineffective duplicative programs including 27 identified in the 2011 government accountability office. i guess i would like to ask any of you who would like to weigh in, the fact that this is unfortunate language, and, in fact, were there even think about offering includes only one of our proposals in that skills act. could you discuss further proposals to remove arbitrary roadblocks that will help get americans back to work in the jobs that are currently in demand? and i know on my own michigan website, lists 52000 unfilled jobs right now. most of those, and that can we know there are many more than that but that's on the one

website of state government website. and the majority of reasons why they are not filled is people don't meet the certification requirements, the qualification, they haven't been trained for the. if you could speak to that issue. what proposal would you have in mind to remove further arbitrary roadblocks to making people employable? >> mr. schatz, i will start with you if you care to answer. >> certainly creating a pro-growth policy in washington would be helpful and certainly that does not entail creating new and duplicative programs as dr. coburn noted. he examined a jobs program in oakland and turned up the state was far more efficient at creating jobs because the training that they were conducting is related to jobs. that's something that the government should be looking at as well. i know that in the house the skills act was supported strongly by republicans, not supported as much by democrats. the difference is how it should

be done. whether its legislation, whether it's through pro-growth policies, tax reform, many other ways to help create jobs. that's not something that we ever found in the constitution, yet members seem to think create jobs is one of the major functions. as opposed to getting out of the way so that people who do know how to create jobs can do that. including our state. i think that was one of the best points of the skills act to give the flexible back and the opportunity back to states. mr. edward? >> a broad comment on the job training. i looked in detail at the job training programs over the decades, and it is a stand, the federal chopping programs have never really worked well. over half a century to john f. kennedy every decade or so we be organized in and change it to fix them. they gao comes back and basically says you can't really show that these things work very well. i think the government on to get out of the job training

business. if you look at the data it is the corporate sector, business sector in the united states that says much more massive job training on the job training, federal government, 18 or so billion is a tiny drop in the bucket. it hasn't worked very well. i take the federal government out of that business in terms of pro-growth policies, there's a gigantic -- it's outside the jurisdiction of the committee but there's a gigantic reform that is on the plate. there should be bipartisan support for corporate tax for progress the highest corporate tax rate in or. it makes no sense. you read a newspaper every few weeks, every month or two about corporations are moving jobs elsewhere, often because of the corporate tax. a problem we have, president obama says he is for corporate tax form, republicans are for, why we can do that i don't understand. our neighbor to the north, they just -- largest trading partner, has a 15%. we have a 35% rate.

it makes no sense at all. that is a big thing we can do because with businesses they have a lower overweight. they buy more machines, you need workers to run those machines. corporate tax cut would be a huge jobs bill in my view. >> i'll concur with both chris and tom, but also add the state level a special we seek licensure laws that place real strong restrictions on that of job growth because that can occur with any particular field of expertise. you understand windows are created for surgeons consider the windows are great for things like interior decorators, they are just protectionism on the part of some of these trade associations that they can limit the access of people seeking jobs to actually become employed. >> i'm out of time but could ms. woo -- >> go right ahead. >> just had a quick note. in terms of job growth, i'm not going to say anything much just

in terms of the content of our report. at the same time, the federal government is spending billions each yea year on subset in large agribusinesses which really put small farmers, small businesses at a competitive disadvantage is. tax loopholes and tax payments where companies are able to ship -- ship their product out sure and use zero tax rate o were vey minimal tax rate really puts small businesses at a competitive disadvantage and routers taxpayers in that they have to now pick up the tab through public programs more debt or higher taxes. back and really put a damper on job growth and put a dab of being able to find a job and pick up your household in that kind of way. >> thank the gentleman. recognize the gentleman from illinois. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. i really think that all of the

members of this committee agreed that waste in government and unnecessary spending is unacceptable. it also appears to me that members will probably agree this committee is well-positioned to investigate and examine issues of waste, and conduct with legitimate oversight work at home -- hold agencies accountable and help implement necessary reforms. despite the very six apples of waste identified during today's hearing, there has been some progress in this administration that agencies and congress should continue to build upon. president obama made it a priority to reduce improper payments when he took office. we should be pleased that over the past three years the federal government has avoided making $47 billion in improper

payments, and recaptured 4.4 billion in over payments to contractors. another initiative established by president obama is securing americans value and efficiency toward or save award, which tappetapthe knowledge and experf front-line federal workers for recommendations to help improve government performance and ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent wisely. mr. arnold, in your testimony you acknowledge and support the save award, correct? [inaudible] >> why do you that the save award can be effective in identifying government waste? >> yes, i did include and i think it's something president obama deserves credit for. i believe he's included about 80 recommendations, people from this program into his budget

over the past several years. so yeah, i mean, along the same lines, whistleblower protection provided an incentive structure to report on the ways that they're seeing and to devise systematic reforms that will help to limit those things that are wasteful. it makes a lot of sense, we can study budgets and gao reports and cbo reports all day, but we don't have that same on the ground experience that these federal employees do. so when you to tap into the expertise as well. >> do you think that we will get from them more of an accurate accounting than other types of oversight might provide? >> whether it's more a good or not i don't know but it is certainly a different perspective and is a very valuable perspective. >> i've always, i since being a kid, i've always been amazed at

the amount of waste, inefficiency that was always pointed out in government. and i've also been amazed that the notion that the private sector automatically is going to be more efficient than any public sector activity, and i guess because of the profit motive. given the proper motive though, does that mean that the level is going to be greater to the public, or the benefit is going to be part of the profit that the private sector earns? and that might be a kind of balance in terms of public interest of what benefits the public. ..

spending close to $700 million to promote healthcare.gov and i know that my colleague has a bill that would require advertising purchased by the federal government to add a disclaimer like we have on the political ads and this

advertisement was paid for with tax dollars. sometimes it's difficult for the public to know somebody that worked in broadcasting we ran many psa's that came from government agencies and we ran them for free available commercial time that other cases you have the federal government paying for advertising. i certainly see the need for advertising and recruiting the military, the driving people to the website that doesn't work or at least wasn't working well when some of these ads were running seems to be a problem. have any of you looked at a government advertising expenditures as a source of waste? >> we have looked at sponsorships having the agencies sponsor nascar among others so we have taken it from a different direction. in terms of disclosure it's not something that we've got about but they do deserve that kind of

transparency because we know how that money is being spent. >> i think the bill would go a long way at least raising public awareness. you talked a lot about moving stuff to the private sector and i am a big supporter of that and i think the private sector with the profit motive and unburdened by one of the rules and regulations that exist in the government organizations is a good idea but coming back to healthcare.gov, that was outsourced to a private company and had huge excess of cost overruns. we have talked about procurement reform, the you can't turn it over and the private sector and not have some kind of oversight on the contracting. can you talk about that? >> i agree and to go back to what the congressmen said, the private sector is sort of a two-part partnership.

companies want to earn a profit but what we want to do in the public policy is a man can become maximize the competition to peel away any access so the companies on to earn profits and others want to grapple and that's why the system of the private sector works. we should absolutely minimize the contract and the federal fund contract on obamacare. i didn't look in the details of that but for federal contracting we should try to maximize competition any way we can come to maximize transparency. >> we have also had some hearings with respect to contract and reform where, for instance, the design and build a contract you were going out and rather than coming to the three or four finalists to come up with a very detailed proposal after the initial request you are ending up with ten. so you have huge costs associated with the bidding for

the government contract in the regulations associated with that that have to get built in so if you are only getting one of ten contracts you're spending hundreds of dollars you have to recover that cost somewhere else. >> but that's the way the sector works. they have people competing to contract. i think that you are referring to the ppp, the partial privatization. i think it works well on the capital beltway in virginia and they put a billion dollars into that on time and on budget so there may be some extra costs, but i think in the private sector and private management, having the contractors compete is the way to go. >> i think both of you talked a little bit about centralizing flighty for the federal government -- i.t. for the federal government.

do we have a government that looks like it cannot compete its way out of a paper bag? do we have a bigger problem or are we going to solve something there? >> we did talk about giving the agency more authority because it is a part of their job and it's important that they have the decision making power. i will point out that there were none until 1989 which begs the question why we didn't have it prior to that and other legislation since then and it requires continuous work that is quite difficult but the competition is important and i think that this legislation is also important. >> by five minutes went by faster than i thought i would. >> recognizing the gentle lady from california. >> i wonder to what extent you come here to congress making recommendations to us you seem very interested and engaged in

what happened. maybe you can help in providing to me a list of all the things that we have done as a result of the work that you have provided. you have given us easy recommendations and i think that you have embraced. let me go to the one that you have agreed republicans and democrats can agree on and that is spare and obsolete parts. this was bought at a hardware store for $1.41. a defense contractor charged us, the tax payers in this country $80 for this. this is a package of washers. $1.22 of the local hardware store and defense contractor,

$196. it's outrageous. we have a defense logistics agency that has parts the are going to be there and can be used for the next 100 years and led to the various departments and operations in the defense do? the go after the defense contractors. so, you have identified something coming and i hope to god that we do something about this. its $4 billion. >> free $.9 billion is the what we cited in the report and was one of the more difficult numbers we had to track down, because there were so many conflicting stories about how much was wasted at the pentagon. as a, we ended up siding the gao report but there are many other studies that would put that number much higher. >> i'm not going to ask you to speak to it today but it is a

series of reports on the referral where an ancillary medical service, whether it is in our i -- mri laboratory owned by them and they end up referring more of their patients to it and the result is savings, probably $10 billion or more over a ten year period of time. i'm interested whether or not you have looked at that issue and respond separately on that. >> that may be addressed by the medicare bundling which is something that we did include in the report and have a single payment coming out. >> it is a self referral issue. let me move on to the subsidies. the gao has indicated that we have seen a growth increasing the cost subsidies 2006 of about $3 billion, and now is looking

at $9 billion per year. the report argues that we could save more than $84 billion over ten years by either eliminating this program. what is most stunning is that gao reported that the biggest recipient of the subsidy is a corporation, not the family farmer, the corporation receiving $2.2 million in premium subsidies. 75% of the subsidies are going to 4%. who is in this four per cent? >> 75% in the program are only going to 4% of the recipient. and in at 4% -- >> give us the names. >> i don't have that information >> ted turner is an example.

jon bon jovi -- >> members of congress. >> let's be fair i want to go after anyone regardless of the political affiliation but who are the 4%? let's get a list of who the four per cent is. >> they do a very good job on identifying the farmers. it's remarkable that the average farm in the united states now earns income 25% higher than the average household in the united states. as of the farm subsidies already refers program taking from average the tax paying families and giving them to the other people. i think it is completely unfair. >> 80% of the farmers though get about $5,000 on average. so, we are talking about a very small concession getting the lion's share of the money coming and if we know who they are and there are corporations that should be getting it, we

shouldn't be offering it. they have recommended a cap of no more than $40,000 in the subsidy. do you all support that? >> absolutely. one thing i would point out is people who don't look at that don't really get the direct payment of the landowners if the subsidy of the farmers the people what the rockefellers they own massive amounts of land get to the subsidies and not the kind of farmers he hires. >> like the congressman mentioned earlier cooperating with each other we had a good coalition on that issue. they didn't want to get into the farm bill. >> the gentleman from arizona is recognized. >> some of the previous comments. competition is one aspect for the transparency and also accuracy and writing the contract is another.

would you agree? >> mr. edwards? >> yes. >> would you repeat that. >> one aspect to ensure the competition but also acted as the in the contract and the calculations are another part of this. are you familiar with the prevailing wage? >> yes. >> i was taken back by the gao account, and what it showed a is we have a problem. so do you believe the fair wage for the ferre jobs? >> we have supported that and the service contract. >> how much? >> yes. >> what came to my attention i agree with you i don't see that there is no benefit.

maybe at one time, there was. but i don't see much of that aspect now. but you be surprised 100% of the audit calculation made it more fraudulent? >> that does not surprise me. i haven't seen the report but it would not surprise me. >> what about you, mr. edwards? >> 100%. a little surprising. >> how about you? i was prepared for 50 or 60%. >> we contacted the calculations for the prevailing wages and the department which is crappy. let's say let's give up on the prevailing wage and let's recalculate what is properly done for the fair wage and fair job and move it to the bureau of statistics. do you know how much money we would save on that calculation each year if we need between 50 to $25 billion a year?

>> that would certainly be helpful. i'm a scientist. i'm a dentist commesso duties and the detail and i like the fact and the way that we are doing and now we have no facts to base it on. some people are being overpaid and underpaid and we don't have a calculation to based on. >> do you think there would be something you could support for just getting the accuracy back? >> it's not just the prevailing wage it is everything that we see in terms of information. there would be a good place to start. >> absolutely. the losers are the citizens because they get the maintenance, for example, because the wages get -- >> degette more quality service and more investments that help them -- >> how about you? >> the amount of money that you would be getting out of that definitely helps the federal government in the process in

terms of what the wage is supposed to be and is not in the purview of the expertise. >> but the would be a good thing. >> coming back to you mr. edwards you are exactly right. the prevailing wage is an average of 22% and added to the contract just for the point that he was making. if you have the accuracy you get five for the cost of four. interesting application. i have a bill that changes those words for a federal contracting act we would like to see that. it is a simple thing that i think everybody could agree with >> what do you think the influence of having a look walls on every bill so you see them coming in front of congress mandated to show their work, what do you think that the application? >> we included that

recommendation and the testimony and we support with the congress is doing and we have long testified on the federal level >> i am very much in favor of that. the state of texas along with others worked very well on that so i am in favor of that. >> arizonan, too. >> i am not that familiar with it so i will get back to you. >> basically three sides come seven years down the road but i would love to see the calculations based on the fact and i think both sides of the aisle could benefit from it and so could the enter structure and the contracting because the savings didn't include homeland security more than the dod because they haven't been audited and symbol six words and i yield back the >> the gentleman from massachusetts. >> thank you mr. chairman.

thank you for your willingness to come before the kennedy and help us. one of the most effective tools that we have on the committee and the federal government for making the government more efficient is the inspector general. we have 70 inspectors general across the government. i have to say because many of them testified before the committee and we work with them over the years i would say uniform lead to a great job, they do. part of the work they do involves rolling out the waste, fraud and abuse in the various government programs and in the last few years the chairman of the candy and ranking member of the committee and our members have signed a letcher asking them how many recommendations they have made within their departments and how many of

those recommendations have either been left open, which means they have been not addressed were actually adopted. and the information that our committee has received in response to that request for the inspector general is really staggering. there are nearly 17,000 open recommendations across the government with a potential savings of more than 67 billion. so this is where the inspector general's have gone out and looked at some of the things you talked about with the members on the aisle. they said we have to make these changes and yet 17,000 instances, the department has basically we used and there has been no change. fulfilling these recommendations is probably a good place to start. do you agree with that? >> we know that the funding has and then up to where it should be. we have written extensively on that over the last few years so

it is a good place to start for hundreds of billions of dollars a year to be saved. >> i would increase that substantially and i think that they do a really great job. >> they do a great job post pointing out the problems but there's not enough of a structure to actually implement them. i agree but more in the federal government to root out the abuse >> when you think about what we are doing right now is indiscriminate across-the-board, we are getting good programs a haircut as well as programs that should be completely eliminated and would seem to me rather than doing this indiscriminate cutting to try to reduce the

size of the government in the spending, we should probably target these programs that we agree and the inspector general's ida fi as being completely wasteful. one of the things i have been working on and with some of the members on the other side is a lack of transparency in the dod contracting and the inspector general have even the special inspector generals and the others have identified billions of dollars in savings but we have had a very difficult time in getting the transparency and devotee to make the changes. one of the issues as prescription drugs that the gentleman from oklahoma earlier brought up.

while the va and the d.o.t. had the ability to negotiate that drug prices because -- i don't know how to describe it but just nonfunctioning nature of the system can have some pain 100% higher prices for the same drug as compared to the department of defense and that is the area of brand name drugs so in many cases to hundred 49% higher than what the dod is spending and on generic drugs you have the opposite situation where the dod is spending 200% but they're getting on their prices. if they are all pay into lowest price there would be billions of dollars in savings from a year

to year. and what i'm hoping for is we also have 8 million federal employees and right now they don't have the ability to negotiate lower prices. so imagine if we were to add -- first get both the dod and the va to the lowest possible price and then add the 8 million employees working for the federal government and have them pay the same price, it would be tens of billions of dollars per year in terms of what the loss would be across the government and these days when we are facing not tens of billions that several billion dollars a year for prescription drugs that are being purchased by the federal

government and i and just beside myself with fi in a devotee of the government to get after this. there may have been a time when we could overlook things like this but now we are facing sequestration and trying to cut $1.2 trillion held of the budget and have an acceptable costs across-the-board like this i just hope he will continue to work with us in terms of trying to get some of this stuff the prescription drug price issue is one i've been working on for a long time and there are probably ten drug lobbyists for every member of congress so it is an uphill fight but i think the fight is worth it and it is more attainable because of the good work that you all are doing so thank you for that. >> i would like to recognize mr.

mr. woodall. >> i've gotten to work with most of you one other projects and really do appreciate all the work that you do with your work in the category of those things the government could be doing, though i suspect you do a better job at it and do it for less which is why we want to come back to say that in the testimony it has been fascinating to listen to the back of the board and really amplify to me why the work that the two of you are doing together, why those clever that efforts are -- i heard you talk about waste, fraud and abuse in the defense department and we ought to be able to agree to get that out. shouldn't we be able to agree to get that out? would you kind of frame what we are talking about?

you have three categories if i could phrase what you call silly project some, those absolutely horrendous things that we can all agree have no place on the tax payers time or anyone. you have the projects for which the benefit does not outweigh the cost. then you have the projects that the federal government shouldn't be doing anyway. and i listen to you talking about prescription drugs and she's absolutely right when he speaking of two-thirds of all the health care bills in america, use that monopoly power and you can absolutely drive down the cost of the prescription drugs though using the government monopoly power to manipulate the market place. i would argue it isn't the role of the government to fall into that third category. mr. cummings was talking about the legal service corporation,

and i really appreciated your answer because what you said was not folks who cannot afford legal services shouldn't get legal services. what you said is there are other opportunities to get those services and can't we utilize those non-governmental channels? >> he said we have these software problems because they try to hold it to the army model instead of buying off the shelf software the legal service corporation is in in that example of what has happened. the justice system in america that i cannot walk into the court as a citizen and i feel myself of the protection. should we be changing the government to it out to be very complicated legal system or change the complicated legal system to make it accessible to those of us and vegetables and i don't know how we get started

without the project that folks come to collaborative lee but let me ask you for example, you all have different sales in your project list of the u.s. forest service managers of temporary land they are not in the conservation they are in the management business. one of your opportunities for savings they are losing more money on their sales than they are gaining in the temper. is that something that should go away because it is a bad use of government resources is or is that an example of something that needs to be done if we manage the federal timberland as it is a solution to get rid of the federal land and in that way we don't have to manage them, or is the solution to harm that out and what we identify wasteful spending if we did have to do to fill that void that creates what? and in that example do you

happen to have a what's next vision? >> i think in that example of your suggestion of moving that into the private industry is one that we support. they shouldn't be subsidizing for things that can be done by the present industry especially one that the government obviously is losing money on in this case and so i think that where they shouldn't be subsidizing the profit-making ventures in this industry that would apply to the situation >> they are providing markets overseas for the farmers. is that in the category of things the government shouldn't be doing or is it in the category of things we are doing what we are not getting an extra dollar of benefit so it is just

inefficient? things the government shouldn't be involved in order things we are just not doing well? >> i think it would be the first one. and especially it also depends on the type of benefit that is provided, so it is a little bit of a combination of both. and in this case, the market access program is funding the association's in europe or do you happen to have a reality tv show in india to, you know, showcase the design. it does that really benefit the taxpayer paying $20 million a year for that reality show? i don't think so. so i do think that is partially not the government's responsibility to do that, but also there is no benefit that comes out of it for the average taxpayer. >> i hope that you will all keep doing what you're doing. i see an opportunity this year

and i appreciate chairman's commitment to move the bill forward and i hope that we will take you up on it. thank you mr. chair. >> now waiting patiently, i believe the last member of our committee, the gentle lady from a mexico you are recognized. >> i want to thank the panel for being here today and for your work prior to the testimony today. i don't think that you were hearing from any member that we disagree that this is a fundamental responsibility of this committee. it is a fundamental responsibility of congress, it is a fundamental responsibility of any administration. and that trickles down into the investment in the private sector or into other bodies of the government, those are also those fundamental responsibilities, and i also agree regardless of the climate and weather we have the resources that we can do anything that we desire or in a

climate that we have today, we know that we have a fiscal crisis in this country that we have to address that we should be mindful making sure we are not wasting any of our resources to it and i hope that having this hearing again the committee will return to a partnership with you and others and looking at ways to make sure that we are not wasteful and that we are getting a bang for the buck that we deserve and the taxpayers and citizens deserve for their investment and i am clear about that and i know that you've touched on this in your written testimony, there isn't anybody that i can imagine that is going to disagree that paying $900 for a hammer is a good idea. and i know that my eyebrows raised and worse every time i look at health care spending and know that at anywhere i could

buy a band-aid or aspirin for of 100 of the cost than i'm going to get at a hospital or clinic so it doesn't make any sense whatsoever. i want us to focus today on that low hanging fruit because i think that many of the programs are in the eyes of the beholder and create interesting debates that prevent us from dealing with the easy decisions and easy responsibilities by congress and the administration and listening to recommendations. some think the tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires are not necessary and others deal with extended the emergency unemployment benefits are wasteful so we are going to continue to debate those programs and i can give you another example of some of the testimony today to the i come from the state we do not have a sunset clause but we have done them on some legislation and

because of the political climate, that particular issue or program needs to be free authorized and we stand wasteful money on a special session trying to get that address so it depends on what is happening. it is a case by case basis but we are not doing anything on that low hanging fruit. so, i need you to grade us on congress. i have been here only a year on adopting sensible, good government reforms outlined in the reports every year. how are we doing picking up on that low hanging fruit? >> not so well. although as i mentioned, the bill that has come out of the committee would be helpful to improve the procurement of the federal government, would be another step unfortunately the the senate hasn't agreed to. >> one of the problems as you know especially there could be

80% agreement of bipartisan on a lot of these issues but the members simply do not have time to look at them and i think their needs to be a lot more agreement if we structure and if we have restructured so that the members can actually focus on some of these issues because i think oftentimes the members don't want to get involved in certain issues. there could be more agreement. >> the congress is doing pretty poorly as well. the problem with eliminating the waste and i think this has been touched on a little bit is that no matter how wasteful and ridiculous or unnecessary, duplicative the program is, and we can all agree upon that here there is somebody that is benefiting from it and maybe i'm a genuine and medium disingenuous terms somebody is benefiting from it and those people are going to fight tooth and nail to keep the program on

the books. >> i agree with the statement i do believe the congress is doing quite poorly, and that is also because when the congress or the federal government gives a tax break or when they subsidize a corporation or our advertising abroad for such things as the market access program someone is benefiting particularly the large corporations as you mentioned earlier it's the members of congress, it's the people who are not necessarily helping their average taxpayer who has to shoulder the burden. >> a couple more things, i agree and appreciate that and like all members of congress i believe we are all interested in getting the right work done. this committee has an incredibly important role and it may be a consequence and working in the

partisan and productive areas of the congressional history, but i'm confident that we could move these issues forward in a bipartisan way. we have the chairman acquisition reform act and it passes on a bipartisan basis. we need a bipartisan low hanging fruit bill every year maybe more than just one a year and take the information that we have readily available if we are looking at it and we are all agreeing, but we are not doing anything really about it. so this committee still finds those and you do, too padilla i look forward to many more hearings like this and finding areas of cooperation where we can make a difference. thank you. >> iowa thank all of the members. i know the chairman appreciates everyone's cooperation and i want to think the witnesses for their extensive testimony so we

look forward to working with you in this and it is a great way to start off the new year, particularly for the oversight committee. so, with there being no further business before the government reform and oversight committee, this meeting is adjourned. thank you peery at >> [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] discussing the findings of the

latest shriver report and this project that is led by maria shriver and astute raise awareness facing women. this looks at the economic status and concludes an estimated 42 million women are at risk of falling into poverty pity we will show you this over the next two nights beginning at 9 p.m. eastern on c-span. here is a preview. >> what united both of these teams and everybody that wrote for this report and who has been working on the front lines of humanity is the belief that these women given the chance to not only lift up themselves that their entire families are putting women at the center of the economy is not just good for women that it's good for boys and girls and most importantly for the country and that is the mission of this report is to change a lot of old stereotypes, to put a new face to this issue

and talk about it in ways people could understand and see themselves what we have seen and heard with all of the coverage on television and thanks and appreciation to beyonce and some of the other people as we have heard in all of the responses is this is my story. my story is not about the glass ceiling, it is about the foundation. it's a story not against men but including many and it's a story of what's good for boys and girls and the incredible struggles they face to be breadwinners and caretakers and caregivers to be good daughters, sisters, citizens and workers.

>> a portion of the event, which is available each of the next two nights beginning at nine eastern on our companion network c-span to be on this morning's washington journal we asked if you thought the media coverage of new jersey governor chris christie was fair. we've gotten hundreds of responses including jeff who wrote a define fair. what about benghazi, fast and furious, nsa spying and all the rest. the media is one of the larger problems with the fact. it's what a fer a tracks the viewers and readers. we invite your participation. go to facebook.com/c-span. >> did i feel prepared? it didn't make that much difference. i did notice the difference between being the vice president's wife and the

president's wife is a huge because the vice president's wife can say anything. nobody cares. when you say something about the president's wife, you have made the news and that is a lesson i had to learn pretty quickly. last thursday federal transit administration had peter testify before the senate

banking committee on public transportation programs. he provided an update on the map 21 that fun this surface transportation programs through fiscal year 2014 and also providing testimony was david, the physical infrastructure team director at the government accountability office. this is about 90 minutes. >> this hearing will come to order. today the banking committee will review how public transportation in the federal programs that assist the nation's transit providers have advanced since the current service transportation law was united in 2012. the committee works well together and the appropriations looked forward to continuing our

committee's bipartisan work on public transportation issues. reliable and sensible transit is in rural areas like south dakota just as it is in large cities. the systems connect workers with employers, keep the cars off the roads and get people where they are going safely. the public transportation title developed by the banking committee format 21 made many important changes to the federal transit programs. map 21 provided authority to the federal transit administration to institute a much-needed national framework for safety oversight and the transit emergency relief program that is helping new york and new jersey

transit agencies recover from the super storm sandy and map-21 had 83 tribes across the nation to help them deliver safe transit services to one of the most underserved segments of the u.s. population. our focus today will be on the implementation but we cannot overlook the trust fund. the transit account is expected to reach the end of the map on september 40th where it's only a very small positive balance and the highway at count could face a shortfall. without congressional action, both counts will be unable to support the current program funding levels as it expires.

federal transportation investment this year and beyond depends on the stability of the fund and the committee will be working with the environment and public works commerce and finance committees in the coming months to advance legislation to succeed map-21 but we must first review progress under the current law. today we will hear directly from the fta on how they have implemented map-21. i look forward to hearing information about the fta strategies to improve safety and management practices while minimizing any new administrative costs, particularly small and rural transit providers.

the committee will also hear about how map-21 changes to product development proceedings. finally, the committee will examine the issues that the bto has profiled in this research such as the need for coordination at local level to ensure that the programs that assist the local transportation services are working together effectively. now i turn to the center for his opening statement. >> thank you mr. chairman. in july of 2012 congress passed and president obama signed into law the moving ahead for progress in the 21st century act known as map-21 which authorized transportation programs through september 30th, 2014. since the enactment of the legislation, the federal transit

administration for the fta has been working to implement its provisions. at this point, the programs are authorized for only another eight and a half months. today we will hear from witnesses on the transit provisions to be of some of the provisions of interest to me map-21 provided new authority in the area of transit safety while public transportation is one of the safe modes of transportation i look forward to an update on what progress has been made to improve the passenger safety. i also want to understand how map-21 is approaching this issue. in idaho and other states many transit providers operate in a rural areas with small staff often only one or two or three people. it's important the new rules be tailored in a way that is not disproportionately burden some to the smaller systems especially as the world transit has a good safety record. the transit agencies and idaho

and elsewhere provide vitally important transportation services. for example they facilitate the transportation for the elderly and persons with disabilities to the medical appointments and low-income individuals to jobs. if new regulations are burdensome it will be harder for providers to deliver service. map-21 directed the fta to establish a national transit management system to understand and assess the condition of the education systems. public transportation simply cannot be captured with a one-size-fits-all approach. there are different types of transit systems and a great deal of diversity with respect to the needs of each system in the nation. i look forward to hearing how they intend to implement the asset management provisions. i hope the level of detail the transit providers will be required to provide the fda will be practical and not excessive. for those reporting on the age

and mileage of the vehicle could be up. understanding where it is on implementing the map-21 will begin to consider the reauthorization later this year. i recognize short-term extensions don't allow the type of short-term predictability and security that the long-term authorization can. however as federal dollars are collected for the transportation and have fallen below the expenditures, it's no secret that the most difficult issue to be considered during the next reauthorization is how to refinance the transportation needs going forward. this includes finding a meaningful fixed to the serious and the current inadequacies of the trust fund. a bill with just over two years of authorization was financed using the ten years of the pay for. we must be very careful with what we do in financing this bill in the future. again i think the witnesses for being here and i look forward to their statements and thank you

for your attention to this issue. >> are there any other members who would like to give a brief opening statement? >> i would like to submit a statement for the record that echoes your questions about the adequate funding of the account and the trust fund. >> anybody else? i would like to remind my colleagues the record will be open the next seven days for additional statements and denney entered materials. now i would like to introduce the witnesses. peter rogoff is an administrator of the federal transit administration and david is the director of the critical infrastructure issues said the government accountability office. i would look for went to the testimony of both witnesses.

mr. rogoff, please proceed. ischemic mr. chairman and members banks for having me here to a talk about implementing the new map-21 law. we are on track to receive 7 billion trips annually for the seventh year in a row. transit usage has shown market growth in nine of the 11 last quarters. this is a remarkable milestone. now more than ever america in cities and suburbs and rural communities are asking for more transit, not less. they see the benefits of spending less on gasoline and less time in traffic. at the state and local level citizens are voting to tax themselves to help finance the new transit services in the communities. it will be championed by the committee on a bipartisan basis as a game changer that puts them on the road to delivering transit better and more efficiently in the communities nationwide. it's been called into your

authorization bill that contains policy changes and i think that's about right. not since the enactment in 1991 had there been such profound policy changes to the statutes. it's also quite complex involving at a minimum 27 rulemakings and circulars, 13 separate reports in congress. we have an active team and aggressive timetable to implement a law and while much work remains we have made significant progress despite the impact of the 2013 continuing resolution and 5% cut to the administrative budget as the result of the sequester and a furlough that 95% of the employees working for more than half a month. let me begin with safety. i thank the committee for working in such a bipartisan way to provide the tools and the administration requested to establish a minimum common sense safety for public transportation. we are making good progress. we have reached out to the

agency's so they understand what is needed to enforce the guidelines free of any conflicts of interest and in october we issued a very comprehensive advanced notice of proposed rulemaking on the safety and asset management. while we were not required to combine the tools we did so quite deliberately to send the message to the stakeholders that keeping the transit system as safe as possible goes hand in hand without maintaining the physical assets. the transit industry faces an 86 billion-dollar backlog in the system preservation and we are under investing that need by about $2.5 billion a year. when it comes to the safety of 40 we recognize that a one-size-fits-all approach will not work. the safety improvements for the new york subway system are going to be different than those that would improve the safety of the bus operations in kansas. our entire approach to the

regulatory authority is focusing on adding value and keeping a safe industry say it. we are rejecting approaches that add unnecessary costs and bureaucracy. as it relates to the program since 2009 come fta has executed 26 construction grant agreements, 100% of the completed projects on the list were on time and on budget and the rest were on track to do so. under map-21 we continue to cut the red tape and streamline the program. for example recently we introduced a software tool enabling some communities to reduce two years to two weeks the time needed to develop the forecast on the planned project. this could save taxpayers and some communities as much as a million dollars. because of the constraint on time, we have obviously made huge progress on the emergency relief program the committee authorized a new emergency program as requested in the budget just in time for hurricane sandy but as i've already testified on i'm going

to save that part of my testimony for a later. i want to put out a warning consistent with what the chairman said as it relates to the highway trust fund. at the time that was enacted, the balance of the trust fund was thought to be sufficient to last us through the end of the fiscal year and as i sit here today i cannot be sure this would be the case. we have a very similar worry for our colleagues at the administration whose trust fund account is rapidly approaching insolvency. we are working with the treasury department to upgrade the revenue assumptions which will be reflected in the budget when it is submitted and importantly just yesterday the secretary announced a plan to post on the web site the monthly updates that will show all of america how soon the trust funds will start bouncing checks to the highway departments and transit agencies. i look forward to working with the committee as we try to make

our vision a reality to shore up the trust funds. this concludes my testimony and i would be happy to answer any questions at a later time. >> thank you. mr. wise, you may proceed. >> chairman, ranking member and members of the committee i am pleased to be here to discuss the recent work on the transit issues. millions of passengers use the service on a daily basis and many of the agencies providing the service received the federal funding. the government plays a key role in supporting public transportation having authorized over $10.5 billion in both fy 13 and 14. while map-21 did not address the funding concerns, it did address a number of other issues and putting strengthening federal authority to oversee the safety, emphasizing restoring and replacing the aging infrastructure, consolidating some programs and grants and streamlining the project development evaluation and delivery. my statement describes the work

on the related transit issues, address and long-term funding challenges, improving the capitol investment decision making with regards to maintenance and expansion of the transit systems and coordinating the it services among the federal, state or local agencies. federal funds available for the transit programs come from two sources, the treasury's general fund and the transit account of the highway trust fund. both of the sources face challenges. current week for a congressional budget raise issues about the general funds and spending. another significant funding challenges the declining revenue of the highway trust fund. revenues have eroded over time in part because the fuel tax rates have not increased since 1993 and in part because of improvements in five vehicle fuel efficiency. cbo estimated in may of 2013 that to maintain current spending levels plus inflation between 20152022, they would require of $142 billion more and it's expected to take in more

over that period about 45 billion would be in the transit account. to maintain current spending levels and shortfalls, the congress has transferred more than 50 billion in general revenues to the funds. this approach may not be sustainable given the competing demand in the federal government a growing fiscal challenges. this is another reason it remains on a high risk list. some of the recent work describes how the sound capital investment decisions can help the transit agency's use federal and other funds more efficiently. map-21 requirements to the transit agencies to use the management are consistent with our analysis. for example the 2013 report recognized many of the nearly 700 public transit agencies struggled to maintain and realize the repair. we reported that the capitol investment transit agencies would benefit from estimating the effect of those investment decisions. however of the nine transit agencies we visited only two of them measured the effect on the

condition of certain transnet assets. further, none of the agencies measured the effect on the future writer should in part because the lack of tools to develop those effects and we recommended the fda conducted a straw research to help them measure the effect on the capitol investment including the impact on future ridership. ..

while essential to constrain funding environment, sector transit coordination can be challenging. in our 2012 report on citizens for transportation disadvantaged population, we found eight different programs and eight agencies provide transportation services related to education, employment, medical and other human services. we conclude that leadership in furthering collaboration efforts to improve the coordination of transportation services among state and local providers. fda has made progress in enhancing coordination. as a result of not 21, map-21, the draft program circular for a number of relevant programs. in addition, fda supports programs that play an important role in helping populations by providing funds to sta a